Bottle-closure.



PATENTED. 001'; 18,1904.

M ELFSTRAND. BOTTLE CLOSURE.

A-PPLI OATION FILED JAN. 30, 1904.

N0 MODEL.

l 1 mw/ll/l/a? 12 1-9. Fig.5..

I No. 772,708. v

UNITED STATES Patented. October 13, 1904.

PATENT OFFICE.

BOTTLE-CLOSURE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent N0. 772,708, dated October 18, 1904. Application filed January 30,1904. Serial No. 191.344.. (N model.)

To alZ whom it may con/007%..

Be it known that l, MKRTEN ELFSTRAND, a subject of the King of Sweden and Norway, and a resident of Upsala, Sweden, have invented new and useful Improvements in Bottle-(Jlosures, of which the following is a speci-.

. fication, reference being had to the drawings accompanying and forming a part hereof.

This invention relates to improvements in bottle-closures having rotatable closing-disks. Y The bottle-closure which is most-like the subject-matter of the present invention is that shown in the British Patent No. 25,187, dated November 24:, 1902, (and German Patent No. 139,970, dated January 20, 1903, and shown and described in the French Patent No.

' 322,540, dated October 8, 1902,) in which bot tle-closure the closing-disk is secured to the upper end of the stopper by means of a screw inserted through the said stopper. The said screw, however, easily cuts into the stopper,

' thereby causing the breaking of the latter, so

tle-stopper.

that the screw will no longer have suflicient hold. Besides, the nut in the repeated rotation of the closing-disk will unscrew, and an ignorant person may unintentionally unscrew position on the one end of the stopper proper and another diskor body of suitable shape has been placed onto the other end of the said stopper, is inserted through the center of the closing-disk and the stopper, whereupon the latter is compressed in longitudinal direction, and the other end of the shaft of the closingdisk is riveted in any suitable manner, ex-

panded or slit, and the branches bent apart in such a way that the stopper will be permanently held in compressed condition. The invention also consists in the combination, with thebottle-stopper, of a checking device more I specially described hereinafter.

In order to make the nature of my invention more easily understood, I have shown in the accompanyingdrawings some ways of carrying out the same.

Figures 1 to 3 show each a constructional form of the invention in vertical section. Fig. 4 shows a top viewof the device shown in Fig. l'or Fig. 3, and Fig. 5 shows a top view of the device illustrated in Fig. 2.

The device consists of astopper-body 6, made pf any elastic materialfor instance, corkwhich body has a channel 9 for letting out the contents of the bottle. On the lower end of the stopper is placed a disk c, having a hole or opening corresponding to the said channel the said disk being as large as possible without of course extending beyond the circumference of the stopper. On the upper end of the stopper-body is placed a closing-disk a, which is fixed to the said body by means of a pin d and rotatable on thelatter, the said disk a'being provided with an opening or a pipe 72,, communicating in' a certain position of the closing 'disk with the channel g. The said pin cl is inserted through a central opening in the closing-disk, through the stopperbody 6 in the longitudinal direction of the latter, and through the said disk or plate 0, the

upper end of the said pin being formed with a head '6. Between the latter and the closingdisk at is provided an intermediate plate or disk f, by means of which is obtained a larger pressure-surface against the closing-disk than by a small pin-head, and which may also serve as a checking device, as will be hereinafter explained. The lower end of the pin below the disk 0 is enlarged, expanded, or riveted.

If desired, the intermediate'pla'te f may be dispensed with, in which case the pin-head may be made of larger dimensions than otherwise and of such shape that it can serve as checking-plate, Figs. 2 and 5. Finally, the pin may, as will be easily understood, be inserted in the stopper-body from the lower end of the same and be riveted or expanded at the upper end, Fig. 3.

Under all circumstances the closing-disk and the disk 0 must be connected to each other by means of the pin. in such manner that the stopper-body is strongly compressed between the same.

Instead of one outlet-channel the stopperbody may be provided with two or more such channels, in which case the closing-disk may be provided with a'corresponding number of outlet tubes or holes, which in certain cases may be suitable for use when, for instance, a powder is to be spread out or sprinkled uniformly over a surface.

WVhen the bottle-closure is to be used for sprinkling purposes, the closing-disk may be provided with a projecting outlet-tube and not only an outlet-opening, inasmuch as in the former case almost nothing of the contents of the bottle will be wasted in using the latter. The use of such a tube will prevent the overflow and running down of the contents onto the outside of the stopper which would otherwise occur, causing waste.

The strong compression of the stopper gives the following results:

First. On account of the permanent tendency of the stopper-body to expand longitudinally the bottle-closure will always be held perfectly tight even if the parts which are rotatable against each other have become Worn on account of frequent use.

Second. The bottle-closure will remain perfeetly tight even if the same has been frequently taken out from and again inserted into the bottle. 1f the bottle-closure, which fits well in the neck of the bottle, is drawn out by means of a force acting upon the closing-disk, the pressure will work on the lower end of the stopper-body and compress or tend to compress the latter in axial direction, so as to move (in the former case) the closing-disk away from the stopper-body. If the latter be made of a material such, for instance, as cork, which is partially but not fully elastic, the closing-disk would not but for the said compression retake its original position close to the stopper, but would become leaky, as would also be the case when pressing the bottle-closure down into the bottle. If, however, the stopper-body is strongly compressed between the disks a and 0, according to this invention, this Will not occur, but the stopper will remain tight even after repeated removals from and insertions into the bottle. To what degree the stopper for this purpose need be compressed cannot be prescribed for each case, the degree of compression depending not only on the elasticity of the stopper, but also upon how strongly the same is pressed into the bottle. For common cork, the cheapest and most often used material, a compression of about one-fourth or one-third of the original length of the stopper is in the most cases sufficient. If a screw be used for attaching the closingdisk to the stopper-body, as shown in the earlier patents before referred to, the stopper may in the above-mentioned cases possibly be made tight by screwing the nut tight. lt is, however, not certain that the person who uses the bottle-closure understands this, and in all circumstances it is better that he should not need to do so. Besides, the screw device illustrated in the said patents has the disadvanta that the person who uses the bottle-stopper may with or without intention unscrew the nut, and if this does not occur the screw will on account of the repeated rotation of the closing-disk sooner or later unscrew. In all these cases the bottle-closure will obviously become untight. It is certainly true that the nut may be prevented by any suitable device from unscrewing; but this requires, of course, a special device, which at least in a certain degree would complicate the bottle-closure and make the same more expensive. Besides, a nut and screw are in themselves too expensive parts in such a small article of manufacture and makes the manufacture of the closure more expensive, inasmuch as the iitting or screwing together takes a considerable time. The simplest, cheapest, and at the same time the most reliable manner for obviating the said disadvantages is to use the above-described device. ratus the stopper-body may when the parts are being put together be quickly compressed and then immediately the pin be quickly expanded or riveted. The stopper-body will thereby be transformed to a spring which in all cases has a sullicient strain to keep the closure fully tight, and the latter cannot be made loose in common use. The use of a largest possible disk'on the lower end of the stopper-body instead of the screw end shown in the above-mentioned patents, which screw end may easily cut into the sto 'wper-body, has also the advantage that the peripheral parts of the stopper are pressed in the same degree as the central parts of the same against the closing-disk, whereby a reliable tighteningis obtained also between the peri 'iheral parts of the stopper-body and the closing-disk even if the stopper-body is comparatively short.

Third. A third advantage which will be obtained by the strong compression of the clastic stopper is that the said compression renders possible the use of a stop device which is suitable, reliable, and necessary for such bottle-stoppers. For this purpose itis only necessary that theintermediate diskf, Fig. 1, or, if such be not used, the pin-head Fig. 2, should have suitable shape and that the closing-disk should be provided with an outlet-pi pe h or any other projecting body, as more particularly described below. If the pin (Z be in any convenient manner non-rotatably connected to the disk 0 and the intermedlate platef, Fig. 1, and the latter has, for instance, the shape shown m By means of a simple appa- Fig. 4, and if, further, the outlet-pipe it has i such a position that when the closing-disk is rotated in the one direction it will strike the intermediate disk at w and when the closing-disk is rotated in the other direction will strike the said disk at 'y, it is not possible to further rotate the closing-disk unless unnecessary power sition without spending any time or trouble to examine whether this has occurred or not. For closing the bottle the closing-disk is of course rotated in the opposite direction until the outlet-pipe strikes theintermediate plate (checking-plate) f at Thelatter may, preferably, be of such shape that it allows the closing-disk to be rotated through ninety degrees. The stopper being strongly compressed between the disks, such a great friction is maintained between the saidfbodies that the disk 0, and thus the intermediate disk f, which is non-rotatable in relation to the disk 0, cannot be rotated too far unless unnecessary poweris used. Especially is this the case if "the upper side of the plate a is not smooth and even. It is obvious that the resistance against further rotation of the closing-disk offered by the said intermediate disk f will be the greater the more strongly that the stopper is compressed and the larger the frictionsurfaces between the disk 0 and the stopper are.

When the stopper has been inserted, for instance, in a bottle, it is possible, in spite of the axial strain of the stopper-body, to rotate the closing-disk between as and g without f and 0 partaking in such rotation, inasmuch as the friction between the soft elastic stopperbody and the disk 0 is much greater than that between the hard comparatively small inter-- mediateplate f and the hard closing-disk.

Having now particularly described my invention and in what manner the same may be performed, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by United States Letters Patent, is

. 1. A closure for bottles and the like consisting of, a stopper of elastic material having a channel therein, a pin extending through the said stopper in the longitudinal direction of the same, a plate secured to the lower end of the said pin, a closing-disk on the upperend of the said stopper, the said closing-disk being rotatably journaled on the upper .end of the said pin, and a head at the upper end of the latter, the said pin being of such length as to hold the stopper strongly compressed between the said plate and closing-disk, substantially as and for the purpose set forth. 7

2. A closure for bottles and the like consisting of, a stopper of elastic'material having a channel therein, a pin extending through the said stopper in the longitudinal direction of the same, a plate secured to the lower end of the said pin, a closing-disk on the upper end of the said stopper, the said closing-disk being rotatably journaled on the upper end of the 3. A closure for bottles and the like consisting of, a stopper of elastic material having a channel therein, a pin extending through the said stopper in the longitudinal direction of the same, a plate secured to the lower end of the said pin, a closing-disk on the upper end of the said stopper the said closing-disk being rotatably journaled on the said pin, a projecting body on the said closing-disk, and a head at the upper end of the said pin, the said head having a recess adapted to engage with the said projecting'body, the said pin being of such length as to hold the stopper strongly compressed between the said plate and closing: disk, substantially as and for the purpose set forth.

4:. A closure for bottles and the like consisting of, a stopper of elastic material having a channel therein, a pin extending through the said stopper in the longitudinal direction of the same, a plate secured to the lower end of the said pin, a closing-disk on the upperend of the said stopper, the said closing-disk being rotatably journaled onthe said pin, another plate on the upper side of the said closing-disk having a recess, a projecting body on the said closing-disk adapted to engage the said recess, and a head at the upper end of the said MARTEN ELFSTRAND.

' Witnesses:

GERDA LINDKvIsT, JOHN DELMAR. 

